This invention addresses the sector of what have come to be known as electronic cigarettes. This term is used to denote devices which provide an alternative to traditional smokers' articles and allow users to recreate the gestures and feeling of smoking traditional smokers' articles.
An electronic cigarette can be likened to a vaporizing device which produces an aerosol containing one or more aromatic substances transported by a flow of carrier vapour. In the context of this invention, the term “vaporization” is used to mean, generally speaking, the production of a gas phase. Such production of a gas phase may occur as a result of vaporization in the strict sense (transition of a substance from the liquid to the gas phase) or as a result of sublimation (transition of a substance from the solid to the gas phase).
Usually, the gas phase is produced by heating a starting substance contained in a replaceable cartridge or refill.
Electronic cigarettes can be broadly divided into two different types, according to the form which the vaporizable substance contained in the refill comes in. In a first type of electronic cigarettes, the starting composite substance is in liquid form, whilst in the second type of electronic cigarettes, the starting composite substance is in solid form.
In the first type, the liquid refill is heated by resistance heating. The liquid part vaporizes to form the vapour which carries the aerosol defined on the basis of the aromatic substances contained in the refill. An electronic cigarette of the first type is described in document US20130276804.
The Applicant has noticed that one disadvantage of electronic cigarettes based on liquid refills is the need to manage the preparation and distribution of refills which require containers or tanks. Moreover, although a user has a variety of flavours to choose from, only one refill, and hence one flavour, can be used at a time.
Document WO2013098405 provides an example of a second type of electronic cigarettes, involving the use of a mixture or blend of tobacco which is heated by a metallic plate or element which is in turn heated by an electric circuit. A part of the tobacco mixture has a vaporizable content which produces the carrier vapour which transports the aromatic substances.
Document U.S. Pat. No. 5,322,075 provides another example of the second type of electronic cigarettes where the heating elements are connected to each other by electrical connections. The flavour generating composite, which is based on aromatic substances, is heated and vaporized by the heating elements.
The Applicant has noticed that even electronic cigarettes based on solid refills give the user a limited choice of flavours and come in relatively rigid, standard configurations, in particular with regard to the choice and control of the aromatic substance during use of the cigarette. Document U.S. Pat. No. 5,322,075 in particular involves an electric circuit divided between electrical connectors and heating elements which limits its applicability to simple, predetermined shapes, thus limiting the versatility of use of the cigarette.